Kiir’s failed leadership slowly killing the nation

Evidently, the killing of political commentator, Isaiah, followed by the ruthless gunning down of peaceful protesters in Wau by the blood-thirsty National Security agents, and the deadly shooting down of a clearly marked UN helicopter killing all four Russian pilots by a trigger-happy and unrestrained army, are acts of a regime that’s desperately sliding downhill on the road to dictatorship and failed governance.

What kind of nation have we become when tens of dead bodies are literally popping up every night with decapitated heads in Juba wrecking fear on poor civilians, and yet the president unfairly fails to fire for incompetence neither the inspector-general of police nor Juba police commissioner but yet he had the Wau police commissioner fired after the deadly protest?

And compounding it all, we’ve a president who confoundingly declared in Wau on Christmas eve, that, “if he himself was in Wau, he would have even fought against the demonstrators,” instead of publicly exuding leadership tact, empathy for the dead, sensitivity and sensibility, and leaving the whole episode to the rule of law while personally seeking reconciliation among the warring tribes.

With a president with such a mentality of vengeance, there is great trepidation in the country and among citizens wondering about the utter subversion of the norms of conflict resolutions and the rule of law, things that the UNMISS and the US government have being desperately but without success trying to inculcate into the leadership in the South.

In normal circumstances, however, after the blunders made by governor Rizik (he’s no true Rizikallah), president Kiir should have immediately constituted a high-level judicial commission of inquiry (since citizens were gunned down by state security) to carry out the legal investigations starting with proper scrutiny of the governor’s decree to arbitrarily order the transfer of the headquarters, a move that was widely opposed by the citizens.

Furthermore, as in more civilized nations, this judicial commission constituted would explore all views and grievances raised by all sides and the roles played by the state authorities in exacerbating the situation but more importantly, the commission’s mandate would be to re-examine in its entirety the so-called ‘taking-the-towns-to-the-people’ concept.

Undoubtedly, this contentious and badly misunderstood SPLM/A doctrine has greatly engendered a lot of opposition and controversy for the simple fact that the ruling tribalists in the Kiir’s regime with the passive or active support of the president himself, took advantage by exploiting this policy to aggressively embark on massive land grabbing.

What happened spontaneously in Yei and Wau are just the tips of a political volcano which might inevitably reignite with greater deadliness in Malakal, Maridi, Magwi, Mvolo and other parts of South Sudan, for example, if the issues of illegal mass migration of people and animals and illegal land occupation are not immediately addressed and fairly resolved by Kiir and his stone-deaf hegemonists in power.

Ominously, Yei is a simmering microcosm of political ethnic volatility that had similarly taken place in 2008 in Kenya’s Rift Valley, whereby non-native migrant settlers (land grabbers) from the ruling Central Province tried to surpass and suppress the native population and whereby these aggressive migrants tried to deliberately alter the political demographics to suit their majoritarian advantage of political domination.

Kiir’s often vocalized lame-duck argument after the Yei incident that ‘any citizen of South Sudan is a citizen anywhere he settles,’ shouldn’t be cynically misinterpreted and abused by some tribes; yes, any southerner can legally live and work anywhere across the nation, but he/she must abidingly live by the rules on the ground in those places.

Moreover, learned legal brains in the SPLM now tell us that when this policy of ‘taking-the-towns-to-the-people’ was initially formulated, the interpretation would eventually be that upon liberation of the country and contrary to the former jellaba rule now overthrown, this policy would mean that the SPLM would be taking services that previously only existed in towns to the people in the villages or rural areas, so that these people won’t unnecessarily migrate to the towns, such as Juba, Wau or Malakal, to seek the same services.

This, unfortunately, is what you, Mr. President, has miserably failed to achieve in the long seven years of your rule and with the billions of dollars stolen under your watch which would have provided these services and transformed those villages into towns and provided those services so that your ministers’ houses in Juba, as you recently lamented, won’t be overcrowded with ‘more than twenty’ idle relatives.

Candidly, when the president and his fellow commanders/victors liberated Yei and then liberally without any challenge carved out for themselves large chunks of land thereupon to build their mansions, it was because the natives were damned scared to raise any objection or else they’d have been shot immediately, that was an undisputed reality of life in those so-called ‘liberated’ areas.

Which vanquished Kakwa or Pojulu in Yei at that time would have dared tell commander Kiir or any SPLA then to get off his father’s land at the cost of his miserable life? Let’s be humble and learn to adhere to the rule of law by publicly accepting that now is the right time for you to genuinely redress the injustice inflicted in the war of liberation and bring peace among the people of South Sudan.

Mr. President should ever remember what His Lordship, the Bishop of Juba, sermonized during the Christmas mass, about how more painfully it is to see ‘our own sons and brothers’ now using the same weapon and style of mis-rule of the jellaba Arabs to inflict heinous brutality that southerners thought they’d forgotten with the disappearance of the jellaba from their new nation.

Indisputably, it’s now the president’s own security apparatus appointees, many of whom are closely or distantly related to him, who are slowly but surely killing our new nation, it’s now his unpopular MIS-ruling party, the SPLM, that is blatantly and massively wrecking the country’s political, social and economic foundations.

In the end, the biggest tragedy that is visibly and painfully rocking and shocking the nation would be directly attributable to the dysfunctional style of government now in the country.

Seriously, it’s time the president and his party solemnly abjured all the nefarious policies and repudiated some of those decrees dictated by cronies-cum-governors like Rizik or ministers who’re but totally ignorant or oblivious of the ramifications of their hastily promulgated laws or pronouncements.

The constitution specifically stated that the land belongs to the people, meaning that the native people previously and resident on the land in perpetuity are the legal owners of the land; it doesn’t mean that the government, state or national, can unlawfully override the solemn property rights of entitlement of the people and proceed to expropriate with absolute impunity these people’s land.

Inscrutably, our nation is visibly turning into another Kenya, whereby, the president willfully allows corruption to fester, and the corrupt leaders to become more powerful due to illegally acquired financial powers and the government becomes a web of patronage for very powerful tribal insiders, these so-called leaders will only be in power enjoying the fruits of their exploitation of the nation than being agents of national unity and change.

Finally, if president Kiir has already seriously lost the personal stamina and zeal to rule and rescue our nation from falling apart or breaking into pieces, it would only be timely prudent for him to voluntarily cede power instead of keeping hopelessly entrapped in power while slowly killing the nation.
By SSN Website Editor.

17 Comments

True, Mr. SSN website editor. SPLM has really failed the young state. Nomination of some id… like Garang Diing Akuong into national ministry has shown that Kiir has failed the state. And the random killing which make all citizens stay in fear of being killed, has also proven that Kiir is not capable in leadership.

Dear citizen of South Sudan, don’t blame the president for nothing, it is very difficult for the primitive society to be transformed into a modern system. South Sudan is a new country and this will take us time to understand the word government itself, leave alone the system of government. Why are we not working and stop blaming government? There are so many job opportunities and people don’t want, everybody is in need of white collar job which is not supportive. There is no government without people, we are the government, if you say govt, it means the people are not working in the country; also the position of president Kiir is only one position which will not accommodate all of us……….. OK, WHO DO YOU EXPECT TO BE THE TRUE NEXT PRESIDENT OF SOUTH SUDAN AFTER KIIR?

How could you work when some unkonwn person is vying to kill you? Security is the first priority that any government should provide to its citizens. With security in place, then one could be able to actually do some serious work without fear of being murdered by unknown gunman. The onus is on the government for failing to provide security to its citizens. Do not shy away from telling the truth. Kiir is doing the best he could, but I think he has ignored the security of his people which should be his number one priority over anything else.

In my option, my compatriots of south Sudan, we can’t blame our government in such matters… other people have been saying president Kiir has failed to do his duties…….you know guys, being a new born child is always accompanied with more challeges. So we need to work hard and give our government time.

Domkooc Ismail, The fact can be said as it is, South Sudanese should really abolish the name Young or New Nation because there are mismanagement, financial irregularities and corruption have gotten worse to the extent that the Republic of South Sudan has become a laughng stock in the area of corruption, for the Nation was born and we were living before. We know what is good and bad … Even our leaders most of them they are from 50-70 years, older than Obama. Nation cannot forbid development because it is 2 yrs old.

Doomkooc, the right should not be defended. How shall the people work to prevent killing of innocent persons? In fact, kiir has failed the state. As a citizen, how come for me worried of being killed by internal enemies who are supposed to be controlled by the govt.? For me as an individual, I have to say there is no govt. in Kiir’s leadership. The govt. which doesn’t protect the citizen is not a govt.

Dear SSN Editor, Thank you for well written analysis of the state of things as they start to unfold in the RSS but rest assured that we have arrived our destination of “failed state.” No rule of law, dead bodies popping up every morning, arbitrary arrest, torture, raping, detention, intimidating, suppression of free speech, and the list goes on. Our dream for better South Sudan has been shattered into pieces before our own eyes. This president is a tribalist, he is after his individual and tribal interests, he segregates even between people he leads.
His last cabinet resolution, that defense of South Sudan is now “top priority.” 40 per cent of our budget is going toward this sector, and still we are engulfed by insecurity and invasion. I just do not get it? How much budget is enough to qualify it to be top priority?! This president got nothing to offer, he is out of touch with realities and completely asleep behind the wheel.

Good article, all above-mentioned are facts but the medicine is still fake. SPLM/A one part. One mentality is, if Kiir goes, another one is waiting to take his part of this cake. We don’t have a national army. We have a party army defending interest of that party and top profile members.
South Sudan is in dire situation; there’s no solution in foreseeable future, we must chose between status quo, full mess or a miracle from somewhere.

Yeah, I think everybody has to recognize what’s going on now. Before people were pathetic about some who’ve seen what’s going far head. SPLM party is plugging the country into the toilet and it will be hard for us to save it if we can not act now. Mr. Kiir’s and his boys are missing the focal point how they begin development. I think the money they threat their fellow citizens’ lives is supposed to be put to work. We don’t have time to protect our position with money this time. I hope SPLM can understand that.

Very true. SPLM has not failed. Why don’t we appreciate the splm on it’s good great achievement that they have delivered to us the c.p.a? That is why you see all lost boys are the ones feeding on this nation. Splm is the strong party but it failed under the responsibility of lost boys. So don’t blame our government, blame this useless lost boys who pretend that they’re educated but they’re liars. They are failing our young nation.

Micheal. I could not to bring my mother to be the president of south Sudan as well while kir is father of our nation, this is what i was telling to Mr True to respect our nation and the dignity of south Sudan. My advise to you, dear writers, is this. Let deal with these stupid lostboys.

The fact is that, SPLM as a party and president Kiir as it’s Chair person had failed this nation in many ways, I guess no doubt about that. Now we are losing our dignity as nation at international level, what do I mean, our president had surrounded himself with fools and failures in the past.